Tag Archives: frangrance

So what IS the Trump / Putin connection? So many theories. Sadly, I don’t put a tremendous amount of faith in the really tawdry stuff; the hookers, the pisstapes. Much as I’d like to savour the urinesque fragrance of these salacious rumours, this is my for-the-most-part-baseless gut-feeling about the whole thing:

Following the collapse of the USSR a small cabal of Russian and formerly Soviet industry figures and statesmen were about to become wealthy beyond imagining, almost overnight, through the privatisation of services and industries previously owned and operated by the state. This was all very back-room, skull-duggery, shady-shit, and doubtless an UNTOLD number of Russian journalists committed suicide on their way home from the supermarket during this time. Putin’s crackdown on oligarchs can in many ways been seen as taking out potential political rivals and successors, a consolidation of power.

Of course being crime-lords rather than true statesmen or captains of industry, these rascals buried their money in investments and banks all over the world.

Now, one of the nicest ways to launder dirty money and a lot of it is through high-end real-estate, and that’s where the Trump dynasty comes in.

Oh, and all the ‘adoption’ talks Trump Jr.’s been having with Russian diplomats? In 2009 a Russian journalist named Sergei Magnitsky was arrested while investigating corruption and financial fraud among Russian tax officials. I’m sure you can guess what happened; Magnitsky was beaten to death in prison.

The U.S. put the Magnitsky Act into effect afterwards, thereby preventing certain Russian oligarchs from entering the U.S. or using its banking system. The Russians, in the most petty retaliation ever, immediate put a freeze on any American family hoping to adopt a Russian child. There’s a fucking BUTTLOAD of orphans in Russia, so this was a pretty horrific humanitarian poker-chip to waggle around.

So when Trump Jr. mentions adoption talks with the Russians, that’s code for “we’re negotiating the repeal of sanctions put in place following human rights violations.”

We are living in the second series of True Detective, and I strongly suspect the villains are going to win again.